el porvenir

When Abelardo Olguin Cuevas was five years old, his father brought him to his first cockfight. His grandfather was a gallero, and his dad wanted him to understand the sport that had been such a big part of his family’s history. Olguin was fascinated, and that fascination stuck. Now he carries on the tradition. But the richness of cockfighting’s centuries-old heritage is inseparable from the violence and brutality of the sport, and the increasing opposition to it. It’s still legal in Ixmiquilpan, the town in Central Mexico where Olguin raises and fights roosters, but is outlawed in many surrounding cities and states. His teenage son doesn’t want to pick it up, and as interest dies and outrage rises, there’s a very real possibility that it may soon be extinct in his town. Directed by Alfredo Alcantara and Josh Chertoff, produced by Ben Altarescu.